My toddler just had her 2nd birthday and she got a ridiculous amount of toys. Like you can't walk through the house without running into Mr. Potato head pieces, puzzle parts, and various other small-part toy ensembles.

So I'm telling the family I want only books, clothes, or music for Christmas. I wish I could have a hand in picking the clothes, but alas I can only do so much. I love all the little hippie-throwback outfits at target & toys r us, but I also like some boutiques like children's place. I did make a little wish list at my favorite online store that has cute black baby shirts; http://www.hugewonder.com so maybe I can have a little say in what outfits they get her. I don't want to micromanage too much by making lists at target & etc.

And for the books, I like the beautiful illustrated ones with a good story, but I know she's going to wind up with Dora board books or something unless I figure out a way to tactfully communicate this. And music, I really don't like most of the folksy stuff that's out there. But I don't mind world music or rock music. So I put cd's like these on her wishlist too:

From "Santa":
A Bigger Kitchen Set
Power Wheels Sport Squad( four-wheeler)
Amazing Animal Circus(Little People)
Sing and Hum Elmo
Elmo's World Talking Cellphone
Some dresses and other clothes

*She loves Elmo she only wanted to have Elmo's this Christmas*:

From the Family as far as I know she's getting:
My Twinn Doll(from my mom)
E-L-M-O
A kid's size table with two chairs(from MIL and FIL)
Wooden Blocks(FIL, exactly what we wanted for DD)
A See and Say from FisherPrice
Mr. Potatoe Head
A cute singing and talking Gorilla(he talks and moves when you clap)
Food Fixin' Fridge(Playdoh)
Some CD's of Brasilian and Dutch Lullaby's and other songs and Story Books
Clothes I believe

And from Friends I don't know, she got several presents from friends last year, what I know is that DH's secretary is getting her stuff from Little Pony and his co-workers are getting her wooden puzzles, I believe

The list got long, she's getting a bunch of toys, God But luckily the toys she doesn't plays with anymore(and that some of them she left new) are passing to DD#2 coming in Late December- early January and she'll be getting some things to like a gym from FisherPrice among other stuff, we can't leave her behind, and we don't know if she's going to be here before Christmas:

My DH and I also come from vastly different backgrounds when it comes to Christmas gifts....When I was a single mama, I would spend the entire year saving for gifts and my 2 kids had an over the top gift extravaganza every year.....Since we've been together, (about 5 years) we now have 5 kids between us and I ve been working on not buying everything I see that I think the kids would like. This year we've agreed to one large and two or three small gifts per child. Here's what we have so far:

For the grown up kids: Gift cards to Trader Joe's, Zia ( a locally owned used record store) and Ross. For Chris, some kind of accessory for his jeep, for Elizabeth, fabric and patterns, yarn, felting wool, also for both, stocking with hand made caps ( I've just learned to crochet) , lip balm, small jewelry item.

Someone here asked about Magic Sand--just wanted to say, stay away! My ds got it for his birthday, and it is impossible to clean up (well, not impossible, but it took a long time). The hook is that once you get it out of water it goes back to being sand--and that's true, but we had to strain a whole tub of water through coffee filters to recover the sand--it took forever.

My youngest is getting a set of GeoMags from me. From my dh he is getting a Spider Man, a Batman, and a Superman costume for dress-up.

My middle child is getting a book about the night sky and some star cards from me. Dh does not know yet what he is getting her, but he thinks it will be art materials.

Our oldest is getting a sewing machine.

Each child will also get a book and a game. My middle child is getting What's Gnu, a game about spelling 3-letter words, and my oldest is getting a Professor Noggin American history game. Don't know yet about the youngest.